Tag: Recipe roundup

Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I did it again. I made a freezer recipe and lost the original. This one was Barcoa Beef, based on a Chipotle recipe. I really need to figure out where these recipes are saving themselves. I checked both the work and home Ipads, favorites, Pinterest, and bookmarks. Nowhere to be found. I did remember to take pictures though.

1- Barcoa Beef

It was pretty good. Nice and spicy. The rice helped cool it off spice wise. We might try it as a taco filling.

We had soup and grilled cheese and some leftovers as well.

2- Stuffed Italian Meatballs from a Food Network insert.

I stuffed them with marinated mozzarella balls. We had them with a homemade marina sauce, garlic bread, and noodles.  They were very good! I would make these again.

3- Basic Corn Muffins from Pillsbury Best Muffins and Quick Breads. Section: Savory Muffins

No pics, I froze them right away. They were good. I didn’t have canned corn, so left it out.

Now for the good stuff! My cookie progress.

I’ve made many cookie recipes. My list so far is 4 cookies from the December 2017 issue of Food Network, and 5 from other sources. I kept running out of things like brown sugar and chocolate chips. I wasn’t completely prepared for this marathon.

Here’s the ones from the December 2017 Food Network.

4- Peppermint Sugar Cookies- from the insert.

Delicious! So crispy and soft in the middle. Light peppermint flavor, not overpowering. They have been added to my party list.

5- Chocolate Shortbread

A little dry for my taste. They dough was a dream to work with.  I normally hate cutout doughs, but this was nice and smooth. I don’t think I have a set of Christmas cutters, so hedgehogs and snails it was.

6- Hibiscus Ginger Cookies.

Fresh ginger hurts on dry hands and I’m a little bitter that it didn’t just call for bottled ginger juice. They were alright, very lightly flavored. Kind of a cross between a snowball and a shortbread.

7-Crispy Triple Chocolate Chip Cookies.

These smelled like heaven.  It called for browning the butter before adding it in. I wanted to lick the pan. I forgot to take a picture before sending them with the Husband for work.

The other 5 recipes I’ll talk about on Monday. I have a very playful puppy leaping on my Ipad. Apparently it’s playtime. 🙂

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Apologies on the late post. I had a wicked migraine again yesterday and looking at screens made me nauseous. 🙁 I think I figured out what’s been causing them though and will not do that anymore.

The Husband knows the way to my heart. 🙂 We washed all the new knives and they are in the knife block waiting for glorious recipes! And also for me to accidentally stab, slice, or cut myself with… New knives are sharp!

Here they are in all their shiny newness.

They are Zwilling/JA Henckels, the twins. We don’t buy the International version, as they have some bad reviews and don’t seem to be as good. The Husband found a screaming deal online and snapped them up. I’ve used the chef’s knife and the paring knife so far. They are so nice to use.

We had three new recipes this week. I made a souffle! We bought a big souffle dish and I think I’ll get a matching ramekin set so I can make mini ones. I have 7 small ramekins, but they are different sizes, so it’s hard to figure out how many I need for a recipe.

1- Cheese and Mushroom Souffle from The Souffle Cookbook by Myra Waldo. Section: Cheese Souffles

My souffle dish is a 2 quart and was a tiny bit too big, but it was still very raised and fluffy.

We didn’t like the taste of it. We’re thinking the sweet souffles might be the way to go. It used undiluted canned cream of mushroom soup, so that’s probably why. We ended up throwing the rest out. I’m going to try a plain cheese one to see if we like that instead. I did feel very accomplished though!

2- French Vanilla Ice Cream from the Kitchenaid Attachment book.

This was good, but I had run out of cream and had to sub milk, which made it come out a little icy. It tastes good though and it made so much that it overflowed the bowl. I think I should have churned it in two batches, but didn’t have time before work.

3- Soul Warming French Onion Pot Roast by Little Spice Jar. http://littlespicejar.com/french-onion-pot-roast/

This was amazing! An hour and a half in, I wanted to lick the crockpot. I restrained myself, since we had guests coming. 8 hours later, I could hardly stand it.

I have no pictures because we fell on it like ravenous beasts and a 2.5 lb roast was gone in about five minutes.  It fell apart so easily and I will definitely be making this again.

I’ve started my 25 days of cookies and have made three cookie recipes.

One of them is the macaroons from last week and the other two are from the December Food Network.

So far I’ve made Chocolate Shortbread Cutouts, and Hibiscus Ginger cookies. My hands are still burning from hand squeezing ginger juice from freshly grated ginger…

I’ll post pictures and reviews of those recipes tomorrow when I review for the month. Have a good night!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Happy Thanksgiving Leftover day! I hope your leftovers are tasty!

I did make two new recipes for Thanksgiving, but the souffle was not made for dessert. I had big plans, but the interweb said that it wouldn’t rise after being transported in batter form and I was having an off cooking day. I thought I shouldn’t risk it.  I didn’t want to ruin Thanksgiving. We brought caramel brownies instead (from a box! The horror!). I burned the brownie edges actually, by mis-remembering the temperature. This was after my squash refused to flambe and my cranberry sauce was more like soup… I shudder to think what the souffle would have done.

I’ve made five new recipes this week. My unexpected day off helped on Monday. Fancy got a batch of seasonally appropriate pumpkin treats. She likes the apple ones better, I think, but these still get the tail wag and sometimes even a head tilt!

These were a Pinterest recipe.

1- Peanut Butter Pumpkin Oatmeal Dog Biscuits by Created by Diane.

https://www.createdby-diane.com/2012/10/pumpkin-peanut-butter-oatmeal-dog-biscuits.html

The dough was very wet. I hadn’t ground up the oats, so that could have been why.  They didn’t bake up hard at all. They are nice soft little cookies. They work really well as a trick to get Fancy to eat when one of us isn’t here. We can crumble them up over her food and she seems to realize she’s hungry after picking out all the bits.

2- Triple Chocolate Ice Cream from the Kitchenaid Ice Cream Bowl attachment book.

This was good. I had thrown in a tiny bit more cocoa powder because I was at the end of the box and it showed up as a bitter aftertaste. I forget that the sweetness level goes down after being frozen. This was not the Husband’s favorite. He couldn’t get over the bitterness. I liked it.

3- Glazed Butternut Squash from Cast Iron Cookbook by Joanna Pruess. Section: Vegetables and Other Sides. 

No picture of this, but it looked like mashed squash. 🙂 It was a little mushier than I liked. I started with unexpectedly tiny chunks of squash, which might be why. I was disappointed in this. It had brown sugar, bourbon, butter, and maple syrup and still tasted a bit bland.

4- Creamy Chicken and Mushroom Casserole from Natasha’s Kitchen.

https://natashaskitchen.com/2011/04/17/chicken-and-mushroom-casserole/

This was very good. I needed more mushrooms, but even without them it was delicious. The Husband rated it very highly and requested that I make it again. We had fresh parsley from the garden and fresh parm.

5- Mulled Cranberry Sauce from Food Network Magazine, November 2017, V. 10, N. 9.

This was tasty, despite being a little soupy. I think it needed more fridge time, as it seems to have firmed up a little over night.  My inlaws enjoyed it as well. It had all the flavors of mulled wine in it.

Tonight we had beef fajitas, instead of leftovers. I need a day in between turkey dishes, since I’m not a huge fan of it to begin with. My M-I-L made a delicious turkey though, so I know the leftovers will be good. Now I just have to figure out what to do with the squash. I can’t make anything for Fancy with it, since it has things in it that are bad for dogs. I’ll keep you all updated..

I hope you’re all enjoying time with family!

Recipe Roundup and Party Preview
Party Posts · Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup and Party Preview

LSiehLeave a comment

Mom sent me these tiny spoons and forks because they “looked hobbit sized.”  I think they are adorable and of course, we will use them tomorrow. 🙂 She also sent us Halloween candy that was dressed as a Chinese takeout box. I love her! It’s also very clear where I get my sense of whimsy from. 🙂

I made lots of new recipes for the party, but will post them on Monday, after we’ve eaten them all. Luckily, my cold is pretty much all gone, except for some residual congestion and a wicked cough that sets off asthma attacks. We didn’t have to cancel though, which I was concerned about. The Husband made this Ferris wheel for our centerpiece. Also, it won’t fit anywhere else…

I did make three new recipes for this week’s recipe review. One was from the Sweeney freezer book , one was a made up recipe, and one was from Our Best Bites.

The first one, a banana muffin recipe was for my staff meeting today. We were celebrating birthdays and I volunteered to bake. I had four bananas needing to be used up, so it was perfect.

1- Skinny Chocolate Fudge Banana Muffins from Our Best Bites. https://ourbestbites.com/2016/01/skinny-banana-fudge-muffins/

These may be the absolute best chocolate muffins I have ever had. No joke, these are so unbelievably delicious. The recipe calls for applesauce instead of oil and a sugar substitute. I used real sugar and homemade applesauce. They are so soft and moist. The chocolate is a very deep chocolate flavor and they tasted ridiculously decadent. I will be making these whenever I have bananas. The Husband doesn’t like bananas, so I got to eat them myself.  They were a bonus recipe for the party too!

2- Stir Fried Noodles with Ginger Scallion Chicken Sausage ( Adele brand maybe?), recipe by me!

So I glanced at the recipe on the package for sesame noodles, but the sauce was sherry, soy sauce and extra salt and that’s just not right. I used a little bit of hoisin, soy sauce, sesame oil, sweet chili sauce, sherry, and a tiny bit of sugar to balance it. The sausage was extremely flavorful. We had broccoli, red pepper, carrots, mushrooms, onions, and bok choy for the veggies. The Husband actually suggested bok choy! He likes it in things, but we think not just by itself.

It turned out very good. Sometimes I have trouble with stir fry sauces, but I think I’m getting the hang of it.  I did actually use chopsticks until my hand started cramping. I have to practice for when we see the other side of the Husband’s family. 🙂

3- Carrot Beef Barley Stew from Freezer Meals by Juliana Sweeney. 

This worked out well. I was sick, so I just threw everything in the crockpot and let it go. The beef was so tender and delicious! I halved the amount of barley, as the Husband doesn’t like the texture and it got soft enough that he didn’t mind it at all. I forgot to take a picture of it until I was halfway through my last bowl of it.

We’ll have this again. It was a quick one to prep and froze well.

Fancy is very excited currently, she knows something is up, but not what yet. She saw me put together a frozen Kong toy for during the party and we cleaned everything! With it changing to colder weather, so has been liking walks, but then wanting to cuddle in her blankie when we get home.

Here’s her at the park. There were multiple squirrels!

And here’s a picture of her about 20 minutes after getting home.

She hasn’t figured out how to wrap herself up yet, so she’ll curl up on the blanket in the smallest ball possible and then burrow in if you put the edges over her.

Speaking of curling up, I should go finish up the last of the things before going to bed. If you have a minute between 11 am and 9 pm tomorrow, feel free to join the Husband and I (even just in spirit) in being a hobbit! Tea’s at 3!

Monthly Review And Recipes
Monthly Review · Recipe Roundup

Monthly Review And Recipes

LSiehLeave a comment

Another month gone by! I’m excited to be getting into the holidays and to be finally being down to one job. My current plan is to transfer everyone by The end of December. So far I’m on track. My Fridays are going to be Etsy and errand days. And blogging, of course. 🙂

I made two new recipes this week. One was good and was very good.

1- Gershwin’s Greatest Gumbo from Musical Feasts from the Detroit Symphony Orchestra.

I have no pictures, since we ate this on Halloween. I do have a picture of some of the leftover Halloween candy. We only had about 30 trick or treaters and two Costco bags of candy…

The Gumbo had Cornish hens and smoked gouda chicken sausage. I would switch to smoked turkey sausage instead. The gouda sausage was a little weird. This was delicious though. It had a little kick to it. We will make this again. We had it over rice. It made a perfect meal to have on a cold night.

2- Scalloped Potatoes and Ham from A Quilter’s Christmas by Louise Stoltzfus and Dawn Ranck. 

This was eaten while I was at work, so no pictures. I had a few bites when I got home. The Husband said it was a little soupy, but tasted good. It didn’t originally call for that, but I just threw some sliced ham in it. I would make this again.

Now for my monthly review. I made 20 recipes. 9 were new cookbooks or internet recipes.

We had a couple of hits, the gumbo, Fancy’s dog treats, jerk chicken, and the cuban steak.

Misses were Dad’s bread method and the Hungarian Beef Stew.

I tried using Dad’s method for my new technique and will try it again. I made some more frozen meals to keep and they have turned out good so far.

Crafting wise, I made my goal of finishing an item of clothing and my UFO goal on one fell swoop with my flamingo pjs. They are so cozy!

I also made my elephant bag, but couldn’t bring myself to sell it. It needed to be mine.

I also started Nanowrimo this month, so my challenge will be getting my writing done as well as maintaining  sewing and cooking. I foresee a lot of crockpot meals this month.

So to explain Nano, the point is to write 50,000 words in the month of November to end up with a short novel. I’ve attempted this before and only “won” once.  This year’s novel is a Steampunk novel involving political intrigue and magic. Somehow while writing yesterday, cowboys showed up. It was weird, but it kind of worked out. I think. It’s going to be interesting to see where it goes.

So my goals for this month will be a little smaller, due to Nano. I plan to still keep the 2 new meals per week. I also want to try cooking something familiar with a new recipe.

Sewing goals are to find my serger pedal and to try sewing with knits. Also, to finish one of the quilts that I have tucked away.

Now, I have to go get the dog off the bed. She snuck into our bedroom while I wasn’t looking. She likes to steal blankets and pjs and snuggle them.

Oh, and make word count. Wish me luck!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Since I will be dancing my heart out this weekend, I thought I would post my recipes early. 🙂 We had a lovely brunch with Kayla on Sunday and I made a Quiche recipe that I actually liked! Typically, I’m not a fan of baked eggs, but this was very good and even better on the second day.  I also made a new freezer recipe, for which I cannot find the recipe and a new pork recipe for the Husband.

I’ll start with the food I can’t find the recipe for.

1- On the freezer bag, it’s called “Hungarian Beef Stew.” It specifically called for mini peppers and had caraway seeds in it. Betty Crocker has a similar slow cooker recipe, but it doesn’t have all the ingredients.

I believe I used a slow cooker recipe and just prepped it to freeze, but don’t remember. I cooked it for about 7 hours in the slow cooker. I liked it. The meat was very tender. The Husband thought it had a strange taste, most likely the caraway seed. I probably won’t make it again.

2- Quiche Lorraine from Bacon 24/Seven by Theresa Gilliam

This was delicious! I had one less egg than I needed, so I added more cheese. I used smoked Gouda. I also made it crustless.

We had it with a salad and some yummy almond flour muffins that Kayla brought. The Husband loved it! He requested it again on a future weekend.

3- Baked Pork Chops and Rice from Baked at Midnite. https://bakeatmidnite.com/baked-pork-chops-on-rice/

The Husband said he liked this. I need to find different ways to cook them, but there don’t seem to be too many different ways that don’t require searing or stove top, neither of which the Husband is comfortable doing on his own. We’re going to try having him do that when I’m home.

4- Sautéed Spinach and veggies, method by me.

I sautéed sliced garlic, mushrooms, garden tomatoes, and spinach in some olive oil, salt and pepper. It was delicious. The Husband doesn’t eat spinach, so I didn’t even have to share! We ate it with smoky paprika turkey tenderloins and boiled carrots with butter.

It was a pretty good week for new recipes. The Husband has some leftovers for the weekend, but also has the play, so he’ll be on a weird eating schedule.

I made some tea blends for Ooky to go with my tea wallets too. There’s three green tea blends, and three black teas. They are in cute little 4 oz. Mason jars.

Wish me lots of sales this weekend! I know the dance part will be a ton of fun already!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

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I had to wait to post for two reasons. The Husband was gone for most of the night yesterday with his play and Fancy was sprawled across my lap, not letting me up. Also, I had only tried one new recipe! I was horrified and decided I needed to try at least one more before I posted.

I had a bunch of late nights this week and the Husband was at practice, so I had frozen chili and microwave soup, while he had pork one night and leftovers or a frozen meal the rest of the nights.

Here’s Fancy, judging me for the lack of meal planning and homemade dinners… (I’m pretty sure it was actually her judging me for stopping the pets to take the picture.)

Here are the couple of recipes I made:

1- Grilled Cuban Flank Steak from Kayln’s Kitchen.
https://kalynskitchen.com/cuban-flank-steak-recipe/

This was pretty good! It marinated while I was at work and we broiled it on Tuesday. It got dark a little too quick to grill. The Husband had a salad, I had buttery garlic green beans. I also had a pear.

2- Banana Carrot Dog Treats.

http://homemadedogtreatsnow.com/banana-carrot/?utm_content=bufferead83&utm_medium=social&utm_source=pinterest.com&utm_campaign=buffer

I had a banana to use and since we are still keeping Fancy off chicken, she needed more treats. She was less than enthused about the fish biscuits I found at the store, so I decided to go with things I knew she liked. She does not like bananas plain, but loves carrots.

I just got my bone shaped cookie cutters in the mail. This is the smallest cutter. I figured if I was going to be the crazy lady who bakes for her dog, I may as well have the cute shapes. I subbed rye flour for the whole wheat flour. The dough is very wet and looks like it won’t hold together, but it actually did. Fancy seems to enjoy them.

3- Chocolate Chip Bars from The Wooden Spoon Cookbook by Miriam Miller. Section: Cakes and Cookies

This is for my father-in-law. It’s his birthday today, so I thought he could use a giant cookie. 🙂 I added vanilla to the batter and used M&Ms too. We haven’t eaten it yet, but it smells good. We are planning to eat it with ice cream.

I made another batch of yogurt and have found the perfect ratios for me, so I thought I would share my secrets. It’s the recipe from the instruction manual for my yogurt maker, so it’s not a new one, but it works very well. The yogurt maker was a terrific investment.

I’ve been making just plain yogurt and then typically adding jam, mini chocolate chips or coconut flakes, and some type of nut. This bowl has my homemade strawberry marmalade and walnuts. Mmmm….

Here’s what I do. Heat 5 1/4 cups milk to 180 over low to medium heat. (It’s not supposed to boil, but I swear it waits for me to look away and then explodes, so it has typically boiled.) Turn off the heat and let it cool to 95. Then I add 10 T of dried milk powder to the mix along with the starter yogurt and whisk it until smooth. Pour the mix into my little jars and put the machine cap on. 8-10 hours later, I have beautiful, firm yogurt to eat. It almost has the texture of greek yogurt.

One of these times I will try making it with jam, but I like the freedom of having plain yogurt. I got through the mix in about a week and save one jar for a starter. I’ve not seen a difference using homemade yogurt or storebought as a starter. It’s definitely saving us a bunch of money, considering what I was spending on yogurt per week.

I have plans to make dinners in the crockpot over night in the next week. I just made three beef freezer meals and have plans for three chicken ones, plus the omes we had already. The Husband’s play opens this coming week, so he will need lunch and dinner at work. I want to try some more veggie meals for me too. If I make the dinners overnight, we can both have it for lunch and then he can figure out a second meal.

Well, it’s time to head out to deliver the cookie! Hopefully he likes it!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Fancy, the Husband, and I are tuckered out. We went on a grand adventure today to our college’s homecoming. We took Fancy with us and discovered that she can be in the car with just the car harness belted in and not in her crate for about 2 hours. We had the crate with us in case, but it’s nice to know that we can do that.

We all had a great time! It was a little weird being back on campus and realizing I graduated 10 years ago. Gosh, I’m getting old.

Some things we discovered during the parade: Fancy does not like drums, is unsure of bagpipes, and would very, very much like to eat the cheerleaders’ pom-poms. She’s currently snoring on her blanket after meeting several new dogs and a very many new people. She was quite the attention getter and is now an honorary Phi Mu Alpha (The Husband’s fraternity) house dog. 🙂

Because it was homecoming, I made one of our college’s famous foods, Highland Chicken. It figures, the only school spirit I have comes out in food… Of course, I improved it a little.

1- Highland Chicken, recipe by me. Absolutely no measurements, sorry!

Saute mushrooms and onions in olive oil until tender. Add garlic powder, salt, pepper, and parsley. Add half a brick of cream cheese. Cook until melted. Roll out puff pastry and cut into 6 squares. Divide mixture between puff pastries, twist corners into center. Bake at 400 for about 20 minutes.

It was good and brought back a bunch of good college memories. 🙂

We used left over chicken from the next recipe to make the Highland Chicken.

2- Roast Chicken With Herb Butter from In the Heat of the Kitchen by Gordon Ramsey. Section: Poultry and Game Birds. 

I was brave and popped the legs off as suggested and roasted them separately. I didn’t get this one too badly  off, although I forgot to make carrots to go with it and we had salad instead.

3- Old Fashioned Bread Stuffing from The Comfort of Cooking. http://www.thecomfortofcooking.com/2010/02/old-fashioned-bread-stuffing.html

This was good. A little dry for the Husband. I normally don’t like stuffing, but it was good.

4- BBQ Beef Ribs, by me!

I threw some boneless beef ribs and homemade BBQ sauce in the crockpot with some garlic cloves and cooked it for 7 hours. We had it twice. The picture is from the second time when we had mashed potatoes and carrots. The Husband had it with a salad the first time.

We managed to have a few new recipes in the past week, even being busy. The Husband starts being at play rehearsals more this month to figure out the production side of things, so our meal schedule may be a bit crazy.

Now if you’ll excuse me, Fancy is currently making this face at me to try to get me to play. 🙂 Stay tuned for my monthly report tomorrow!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup · Uncategorized

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

Fancy was very excited this week, she got two new dog treat recipes made for her! Sadly, the vet thinks she may be allergic to chicken and if that’s the case, she can’t have one of them. We’re keeping her off chicken for a few weeks to see if it helps her ears and feet heal. I’m finding other recipes for her though.

1- Apple Crunch Pupcakes by Lola Bakes. http://blog.candiquik.com/apple-crunch-pupcakes/#more-6534

The pupcakes ended up being a trip. I used coconut flour and had to call a friend in a panic because the mixture wouldn’t stop expanding. I think I will not use coconut flour again. Fancy loves them, she won’t even let me get the paper off of them normally before she starts licking them. This is good because with the expansion of the flour it made 24 big cupcakes and two pans of minis. I froze them, as they started condensing a lot in the containers.

Here’s what the flour looked like in the bowl:

And a mini pupcake:

2- Mushroom Stroganoff Tortellini from Food Network Magazine, Oct. 2017, V. 10, N. 8

I saw this recipe when I got the magazine and the picture made me say “yum!” I used cheese tortellini instead of beef, since it was what we had. We always have the Kirkland/Costco brand tortellini on hand for quick dinner. One set will generally get us four separate meals and it keeps very well.

It was a little rich for me, but it tasted good. The Husband liked it a lot and said we could definitely make it again.

3- Vegetarian Chili, loosely based on this recipe:

http://allrecipes.com/recipe/72508/the-best-vegetarian-chili-in-the-world/

I read the recipe, sort of, and then threw everything into a pot and cooked it for a few hours before work. Meat has been causing me issues lately. I haven’t wanted to cook or eat it, so this was a good option for lunch. I am the only one eating it too, so I am going to freeze it for lunches later. I used pinto beans instead of garbanzo beans. I also used a home-grown jalepeno. It was lovely and had just the right hint of spice.

4- Chicken Sausage with Spaetzle from Food Network Magazine, Oct. 2016, V.9, N.8. 

First off, this was in the weekday dinners section and I have no idea how they thought making spaetzle was a weekday thing. We didn’t eat until 8:30 the night I made this. Second thing, if I am going to make spaetzle again, I need a different colander with bigger holes. Also, three more arms, so I can rotate when they get tired. I have actually always wanted to try making spaetzle, so I was excited to do it, but man were my arms tired.

It tasted good though and I had a craving for chicken sausage, so was happy with it. It was relatively easy too, just awkward when trying to hold the colander and smoosh it through.

5-Freezer Cafe Rio Chicken from Freezer Meals by Juliana Sweeney. 

I don’t have a picture, as we ate this on different days. This meal saved my behind this week when I forgot to take anything out for dinner. It thaws for an hour before cooking and that’s it. It was surprisingly good. I thought it might be weird as it had Italian dressing and ranch seasoning, but it was actually good. We had it with rice.

My friend, Kayla, got us this book and it has been great! I have had a much easier time prepping dinners and using the crockpot more because of it. Tomorrow, I will be prepping more of them to freeze as I am almost out.

I’m pleased with my meal prep and execution this week. Sometimes it’s hard to feel like cooking after work, but I do get a lot of benefits out of it.

Any suggestions on techniques or recipes I should try? I’m trying to be more adventurous lately. I have to top the duck!

Recipe Roundup
Recipe Roundup

Recipe Roundup

LSiehLeave a comment

I love my job! Sometimes it’s difficult, heartbreaking, and crazy, but other days I do feel like I’m accomplishing something. This week in particular has been stressful, due to long hours and some difficult situations. On Tuesday though, my dollhouse was home to a puppy party and the dolls were buried in puppies! Then on Wednesday, the dinos took over. They made a huge mess! It made me smile though, so that was good. The fireplace was also built by a client and I think it’s great.

So with this week being long, we didn’t have many new recipes. We had another of the freezer/crockpot meals, an original recipe, and I made a special biscuit recipe for Fancy. She may even like them better than her store-bought treats.

Speaking of Fancy, she is currently aggressively snuggling me on the couch. The Husband is off at Cedar Point with people who don’t get horribly ill on roller coasters, so she is a little clingy. She’ll just climb on up on your lap because she’s in denial about not being a lap dog. I say this like I mind, when it should be fairly obvious that I love snuggling her. How could anyone not love this pup?

Here are her treats and recipe so you can spoil your pup, just like we do.

1-Ridiculously Simple PB Dog Treats

http://simplificlife.blogspot.com/2013/11/ridiculously-easy-peanut-butter-dog.html?m=1

They are unbaked in this picture, but didn’t really change much when baked. I used chickpea flour instead of regular and half water/half chicken broth.

There was way too much liquid! I don’t know if chickpea flour causes problems with texture or not, but both dog treat recipes I used it in were way too sticky. I had to add at least another cup of flour. They also have a little rye flour after I ran out of chickpea flour.

I only made half the batch, as I didn’t have time before work to make it all. The rest is in the fridge, where I am hoping it will be better behaved after being chilled.

Fancy loves them! Her tail starts going a mile a minute and she gets dancy feet. 🙂 They came out very crunchy, so if I can get the dough figured out, I may make these again.

2- Sweet Chinese Beef from Freezer Meals by Julianna Sweeney. 

I added peppers and a little bit of broth, since it was a little less than half the crockpot full. It was alright, needed a little more seasoning. Good for a quick dinner though. I didn’t get a picture of it though.

3- “Catch Your Man” Chicken Potpie, recipe by me.

So, two out of the four guys I have ever made this for proposed and I married the second one, so I figured the name was appropriate. 🙂

This is one of the Husband’s favorite dishes, especially when I make it with pie dough. He thinks I should make this my Masterchef audition dish, but I’ll have to find a way to elevate it first.

I based the recipe on a Betty Crocker one, but never use it any more. I use a roux first and then add milk and broth. I’ve used both frozen and fresh veggies and either works. It’s a great comfort food.

4-Flamingo Mac and Cheese, recipe by me.

I made this last night. I didn’t want canned soup and didn’t actually want to eat anything, but needed to eat. The flamingos helped. I added peppers and shallots, Pensvy’s “Forward!” Spice, salt, pepper, and smoky bacon cheddar cheese. Fancy was extremely interested in it.

I am planning on making Fancy pupcakes for tomorrow and am debating between a pumpkin recipe or a pb one. I think I can just use gluten-free flour, but need to double check. I also have rye flour, so may just use that. Fancy is a wheat free dog, so the rye should be okay. She’s fancier than us for sure!

She is also demanding a walk, so I’d better take her out. She’s been waiting patiently all day while I was gone. Tune back in tomorrow for a pupcake update!